Hello,
I've looked through these forums, and found a lot of helpful information about tiling onto old blockwork, and other information about tiling a wetroom. But I have a newly-built wetroom to tile, and I'm hoping to tile directly onto the blockwork to save the cost, and more importantly, the space (it's a small room) taken up by plasterboard/Hardiebacker. I'm doing one small end wall completely in mosaics - I'm going to hardiebacker this wall because I'm fairly sure that mosaic tiles on a blockwork wall would be very uneven. The blockwork is very good - I'm planning on checking it with a long straight-edge and chipping off any stray lumps of cement before I start anything.
The remaining walls are going to be tiled with 400mm x 250mm ceramic tiles, fairly light in colour. My questions are:
Do I need to use an acrylic primer first (is this something I 'paint' onto the blockwork?)? Or is there some kind of adhesive which would prime and fix in one shot? The room is 900mm x 2230mm and has a shower up one end, so this end will get very wet. I was thinking of using Bostik Showerproof Pre-Mixed Tile Adhesive. I'll be tiling a total of about 12-13 sq.metres.
Would the acrylic primer help to 'tank' the walls at all? Or do I need to do something in addition? I know grout is not waterproof, and waterproofing the walls seems like it would be a lot easier than trying to seal the grout.
Just to add to the fun, it also has wet underfloor heating, but the screed has not yet been started. So I'll be waiting a long time for this to dry, heat up over a few days, cool down etc, before I get to tile the floor. I'm guessing it would be craziness to tile the walls before the floor? Although thinking about it, maybe I could just put something to temporarily support the lowest row of wall tiles, then (after the floor's fully set) tile the floor and then complete the last (bottom) row of wall tiles. Maybe. I assume I'd always want the wall tiles sitting on the floor tiles to minimise water seepage.
Well, that went on for longer than I'd anticipated!
Any thoughts and suggestions would be very welcome!
- Paul
I've looked through these forums, and found a lot of helpful information about tiling onto old blockwork, and other information about tiling a wetroom. But I have a newly-built wetroom to tile, and I'm hoping to tile directly onto the blockwork to save the cost, and more importantly, the space (it's a small room) taken up by plasterboard/Hardiebacker. I'm doing one small end wall completely in mosaics - I'm going to hardiebacker this wall because I'm fairly sure that mosaic tiles on a blockwork wall would be very uneven. The blockwork is very good - I'm planning on checking it with a long straight-edge and chipping off any stray lumps of cement before I start anything.
The remaining walls are going to be tiled with 400mm x 250mm ceramic tiles, fairly light in colour. My questions are:
Do I need to use an acrylic primer first (is this something I 'paint' onto the blockwork?)? Or is there some kind of adhesive which would prime and fix in one shot? The room is 900mm x 2230mm and has a shower up one end, so this end will get very wet. I was thinking of using Bostik Showerproof Pre-Mixed Tile Adhesive. I'll be tiling a total of about 12-13 sq.metres.
Would the acrylic primer help to 'tank' the walls at all? Or do I need to do something in addition? I know grout is not waterproof, and waterproofing the walls seems like it would be a lot easier than trying to seal the grout.
Just to add to the fun, it also has wet underfloor heating, but the screed has not yet been started. So I'll be waiting a long time for this to dry, heat up over a few days, cool down etc, before I get to tile the floor. I'm guessing it would be craziness to tile the walls before the floor? Although thinking about it, maybe I could just put something to temporarily support the lowest row of wall tiles, then (after the floor's fully set) tile the floor and then complete the last (bottom) row of wall tiles. Maybe. I assume I'd always want the wall tiles sitting on the floor tiles to minimise water seepage.
Well, that went on for longer than I'd anticipated!
Any thoughts and suggestions would be very welcome!
- Paul
